Microsoft Is Shutting Down Support for Windows 8 and Placing Windows 10 In the Spotlight

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It’s common knowledge by now the fact that Microsoft is shutting down support for Windows 8 and placing Windows 10 in the spotlight. For anyone still not willing to part with Windows 8 and giving the newest operating system coming from Microsoft a shot, 8.1 is still – at least for the time being – available and protected by the company.

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Windows 8, everyone can agree, was a rather bumpy experience that Microsoft went through when the users did not report the same reaction the developers were expecting. As a matter of fact, the feedback was moreso suggesting the users were downgrading back to Windows 7 when possible. With the Windows 8.1 update, things were partly remedied but still an experience that shook the very way Microsoft viewed their own operating system up until then.

Windows 10 came as a breath of fresh air for the developers and users alike, redoing great portions of the very idea at the base of the OS from scratch. While the original approach that Microsoft took in regards to their new operating system was more along the lines of “here, you can try it out for free and see if you like it”, things seem to turn a bit into a clench now.

Microsoft recently announced that it will shut down support for Windows 8 and the old versions of Internet Explorer (up to IE 10). While that doesn’t, in any sense, imply that these particular pieces of software will no longer be functional, it does pertain to the fact that they will cease receiving updates. And with a lack of updates comes a thick curtain of exposure and danger of being buried in malware and virus attacks.

That means that the current approximately 35 million computers that are still running Windows 8 are exposed to the risk of getting infected or attacked via the internet as the security signature is no longer being updated. Microsoft announced that users should consider upgrading to either 8.1 or 10 in order to continue receiving security support.

It has been stated that Windows 8.1 will continue being supported until January 10th 2023, while its elder brother – Windows 10 – will continue to be fully updated and secure until October 14th 2025.

At the moment there are more than 220 million devices already running Windows 10 – that is with consoles and mobile devices included. Microsoft seems to be prone to start pushing the free upgrade to Windows 10 notification a lot more than it has before in their efforts to put the operating system on a billion systems by mid-2018. The company is targeting enterprises and even smaller organizations as their next host for the newest version of Windows.

The company also reported that the percentile of users who have reported positive or strongly positive feedback following using Windows 10 is somewhere around 60% while only 1 in 10 users reported the system to be unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory so far.

About Ariana Whitmore

She has been writing columns on consumer gadgets since 2010. Her areas of interests include smartphones, tablets, mobile OS and apps. She holds M.C.S. degree and working on her startup, which aims to solve IT support issues.